Crucial Bitcoin Scalability Topics to be Discussed at New Scientific Academic Workshops

“This is going to be the most important Bitcoin conference
of the year,” said Warren Togami, Technical Project Manager of Blockstream and
Scaling Bitcoin committee member. Judging by the scope and focus of these
ambitious workshops, he might not be exaggerating.

The timing of the announcement on August 11 could not be
more apt. On August 15, core developer Mike Hearn announced the launch of the
Bitcoin XT hard fork, in a Medium blog post. In his post, Hearn asks, “Why can
this dispute not be resolved in some more civilized manner than an outright
split?“ His conclusion? “Put simply, the decision-making process in Bitcoin
Core has broken.” The Scaling Bitcoin workshops appear to be poised to address
this specific dilemma.

On September 12 and 13, the first of two Bitcoin scalability
workshops will be held in Montreal, Canada. Hosted by CryptoMechanics,
sponsored by about a dozen companies, and underwritten by Blockstream,
Chaincode Labs, MIT Digital Currency Initiative and Chain, this first phase of
proposals and presentations will focus on setting the stage for further
discussions in phase two, which will be held in Hong Kong at a later date.

Billed as an inclusive and transparent forum for Bitcoin’s
engineering and academic community, the workshops hope to aid the technical
consensus-building process removed from the emotional vitriol that has come to
characterize much of the debate surrounding scalability and the future of
Bitcoin.

“We have to take the politics and drama out of what needs to
be a highly technical discussion,” says Togami. “We’re looking for
science-based ideas with simulations and testing on how to improve scalability
as a whole.”

Planning Committee Chair Pindar Wong of VeriFi (Hong Kong)
Ltd., in an interview with Bitcoin Magazine, emphasized the need for “transparent,
reproducible data,” not opinion. As such, the workshop committee is asking for
presentation proposals. The goal is to allow for the consideration of a
diversity of points of view, studies, simulations and proposals from around the
world. These proposals will be presented using an academic structure.

“A lot of people are talking about scalability, and a lot of
material is being produced,” said committee member Jeremy Rubin of MIT. “It’s
hard for anyone to read everything and stay on top of all the ideas out there.
This will give people an opportunity to be heard in an open and respectful
environment.”

Togami agreed with Rubin, adding, “The issues are complex.
Even experts can’t synthesize everything they hear in one day.”

This need for sober reflection and consideration is also the
reason why the organizers insist that there will be no debates, and no
decisions or pronouncements on scalability will be made during the workshops. In
fact, the first workshop in Montreal will not be hosting sessions on the topic
of any specific proposals involving changes to the Bitcoin protocol. It is
intended to set the stage for phase two in Hong Kong where participants will
share results from experiments performed as a result of phase 1 and discuss new
developments.

The Bitcoin Scalability workshop’s commitment to openness,
inclusion and transparency is evident in their attendance models. Early bird
tickets are priced at $150 USD until September 3, but interested participants
who are unable to travel to Montreal are invited to watch the livestream via
IRC. Presenters also have the option of applying for a limited number of travel
subsidies.

“This is not a bunch of people at a closed-door meeting,”
Rubin emphasized. He acknowledged that while in-person, face-to-face
conversation is the most effective way to share information, it’s not always
practicable. But organizers are trying to remove as many barriers to
participation and inclusion as possible.

While there are opportunities to support the workshop
through sponsorship or by becoming an event underwriter, Togami stressed
another vital way that companies can support the workshop’s aims: Send us your best engineers.

Proposals for presentations can be submitted until September
12, 2015. The committee encourages prospective participants to post a paper,
simulation results and source code or “whatever other type of research material”
they have. However, they point out that publishing a paper is not required,
provided there is an adequate presentation plan and summary. Their main goal is
to ensure that all good ideas are given consideration.

“In the end,” said Wong, “everyone wants Bitcoin to scale
and to succeed.”